"I'd bet a ten-acre lot agin a ginger-cake. An' I'll bet some'n else; I'll bet ten dollars 'gin a nickel that Cap. Westerfelt's boy ain't a-gwine to harbor no ill-will agin one o' his daddy's old friends that wus actin' the damn fool 'fore he knowed who he wus monkeyin' with."
"You'd win on that bet, Mr. Hunter," and Westerfelt gave the old man his hand.
Hunter's shook as with palsy as he grasped and held it. Tears rose in his eyes. "Lord, Lord A'mighty!" he said, "when I reecolect that the young chap 'at stood up thar so spunky all by hisse'f last night, in that moonlight an' sassed all of us to our teeth was Cap. Westerfelt's boy—by God, I jest want some hound dog to come an' take my place on God's earth—so I do. I want some able-bodied cornfield nigger to wear a hickory-withe out on my bare back." Then he dropped Westerfelt's hand and strode away.
Chapter XV
Westerfelt accepted the urgent invitation of the Bradleys to live in their house awhile. For the first week his wound gave him pain and his appetite failed him, which was due as much, perhaps, to mental as bodily trouble, for Harriet Floyd was on his mind constantly. Thoroughly disgusted with himself for having in the past treated the hearts of women lightly, he now drew the rein of honor tightly when he thought of his position and hers. He told himself he would never go to see her again till he had made up his mind to forget her love for Wambush and every rasping fact pertaining to it, and honorably ask her to be his wife. There were moments in which he wondered if she were not, on her part, trying to forget him, and occasionally, when his spirits sank lowest, he actually harbored the fear that her affection might already have returned to Wambush. He recalled something he had once heard that a woman would love a man who was unfortunate more surely than one who was not, and this thought almost drove him mad with jealousy, for was she not likely, through pity, to send her heart after the exile? Now and then, in passing the hotel, he caught a glimpse of Harriet on the veranda or at the window, but she always turned away, as if she wished to avoid meeting him, and this pained him, too, for she had become his very life, and such cold encounters were like permanent steps towards losing her forever, which, somehow, had never quite shaped itself into a possibility in his mind.
It was a warm day in the middle of November, Westerfelt and Washburn stood at the stable waiting for the hack, which, once a day, brought the mail and passengers from Darley. It had come down the winding red clay road and stopped at the hotel before going on to the stable.
"I see a woman on the back seat," remarked Washburn. "Wonder why she didn't git out at the hotel."
In a moment the hack was in front of the stable, and Budd Ridly, the driver, had sprung down and was helping a woman out on the opposite side. When she had secured her shawl and little carpet-bag, she walked round the hack and came towards Westerfelt.